Good deals on tubes in the UK?

[Freddy205]

I'm looking for somewhere that can supply me with a few 12ax7 tubes without killing me on the postage. If possible located in the UK.
Thanks for any suggestions.

[gez]

Watford Valves often have offers where they get rid of stock really cheap.  Sonically, the cheap stuff won't be amazing sounding, but if all you want to do is a bit of experimenting then they'll do fine.

I picked up some output and rectifier valves for next to nothing (in valve terms) just as spares.  Had to sub in one of the output valves when a bypass cap blew and fried the nice NOS one I had just bought (which cost a bloody fortune!).  It's a little noisy, but it will tide me over until such a time that I could be bothered to order a better replacement.  :oops:

http://www.watfordvalves.com/mainindex.htm

[gez]

If you click on price list and scroll down there are some 12AX7s for £3.83.

Not the cheapest they've done, but not bad.

[mojotron]

There are a lot of really good 12AX7 tubes - JJ, GT, EH, EI Select.... All of which are avalible here in the US. What I have found is that each manufacturer's tubes will have a little different sound, and each amp has different needs. And all of these are reasonably cheap..

What I have found is that the EI Selects (don't buy the standard EI tubes!!) and Groove Tube 12AX7M tubes are great choices for just about most of the applications/amps I have tried them in. I strongly favor the Groove Tube 12AX7M tubes - after about 100 hours are on them - they sound great!

The JJs, EH, and Sovetek tubes all sound good - but they have more of a skewed "personallity" and lock you into a "sound" a bit more than others. EH and JJ tubes are nice though - I use them in my Tube Driver.

I can't get enough mid '60s Mullard 12AX7 - I personally am looking for a source for these Mullards if anyone knows of one?

[nelson]

I have some 60's mullard 12ax7's in my Watkins scout head conversion. I can hear why you would want more of them. This amp is almost 50 years old,  has been in a garage for most of that time and is still running on the original tubes. Someone cannabilised it for the elac 10" speaker back in the 60's and left the amp (crazy). It has a lovely tube tremelo on it too. It was in some state when I got it none of the original inputs were wired up. All original knobs were missing. Other than that it was intact. I have been meaning to replace the EL84 output valves one of them is leaky. I replaced all of the old hunts electrolytics...just incase, The filtering cap though I cant find a replacement for but is working fine, the electrolyte seems to have reformed. I replaced some of the old carbon comp resistors as they were out of spec, now its real quiet and plays like a dream.


Probably OT but I love this little amp

[mojotron]

I have some 60's mullard 12ax7's in my Watkins scout head conversion. I can hear why you would want more of them. This amp is almost 50 years old,  ...

This is OT... but I could talk about old tube amps all day... It's like everyone has stuff they like, pedals they really like, guitars they love, but the love of an old amp is irrepressible....

[nelson]

I wonder if its worth turning the tube tremelo into a stomp box...

[Freddy205]

What alternatives are there to the 12ax7 ? I will be sticking these tubes in Tube Drivers / Shaka Tubes. I was looking at a few Groove Tubes and I'm thinking about investing in a few of the Mullard copies GT-12ax7-M or whatever they are.